


all the candles, burnt out

by lackingsoy



Series: helios [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Batfamily (DCU), Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, NO do not call jason “the good guy with a gun” ill sprain your kneecaps, Parent Talia al Ghul, Protective Siblings, damian calls jason ''brother'' because. because., i write from my 2013 trip to china, joker is just a pasty white guy in a clown suit. pathetic. dull. boring. literally could care less, multilingual and biracial jason todd, no talia and jason have not slept together god.............., pretty sure gotham can be polled and. they’d actually be a-ok with joker being murdered, tal uses they/them and ze/zir pronouns bc fuck ur white gender binaries, this was just an excuse to use mandarin in fic, when you deal with unresolved trauma in a fic :-(, white men writers are as entertaining as concrete
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-12 15:15:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29886498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lackingsoy/pseuds/lackingsoy
Summary: Again, he doesn't know what to say--because he's not sorry, and Bruce has always known him to be unrepentant. "I killed a reptile," Jason eventually says, and doesn't feel much of anything as he speaks a truth that should have been fact ages ago. "That choice alone removes me from the family."
Relationships: Cassandra Cain & Jason Todd, Cassandra Cain & Jason Todd & Damian Wayne, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd & Damian Wayne, Talia al Ghul & Jason Todd
Series: helios [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2204205
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	all the candles, burnt out

"Now what would ol' Batsy say?" the Joker says, hisses with laughter. It must think there are only rubber bullets in this thing. 

"Ha, ha," Jason says. Then curls his finger and barely feels the recoil. 

\--

He fucks off to the other side of the planet. Uses up his repertoire of false passports like he's littering, all for Tim to get distracted by, and switches to ones he hired Deathstroke to make. Astor Hemmlick, Dilnia Goran, Zein Alzubaidi. 

It takes two to reach the al Ghul's. 

"Jason," Talia says, as if nothing's changed, as if everything hasn’t been irreparably undone. They tuck the sickle back on their belt, leather gloves going taunt, poison needles withdrawing. They don't smile, but there's a trace of warmth, a signature of familiarity, in the way Talia turns, faces him completely. 

"Tal," he greets, and falters. He almost doesn't know what to say. He knows that they know, knew the second he had left Gotham. So. That's a pointless avenue of conversation. "Thought I'd drop by." For the last time until who knows when. 

"Hm," they give him a once-over. "Child, you do not simply 'drop by'. Offer a more adequate explanation." 

Jason resists the urge to twirl around and flap out his arms and say, _see? perfectly intact, not a smear on me_ , and just rolls his eyes. "Fine. You've heard the news. I'm disappearing for a while."

Ze raises a fine eyebrow. Doesn't ask for how long, only, "Then Red Hood will be gone just the same."

"Their latest kill should keep the seat warm for a while," Jason offers in lieu of a more specific time frame. "Now that every criminal empire knows there are lines that Hood will and can cross." 

It is funny to think that big time criminals like Black Mask, Croc, Two-Face had assumed some kind of immunity, gained from the publicity and their constant bouts with Batman. Ones that they had lived through, and will live through again and again.

As long as they know there is one asshole in black that would gun them down where they stand, well. His name is enough to keep things in check for the near future.

"Your Father will not be pleased," which is so incredibly far removed from Bruce's impending backlash that Jason has to bark a laugh. 

"That's a good one," he wheezes, probably delirious, pretending not to see zir lips quirk and curl, "The funniest thing I've heard in two weeks." 

"Get sleep," Talia says. "Before Batman brings the Justice League upon you."

Jason waves a hand, dismissive. "Unlikely," he replies. "He'll want to deal with this himself. You know how he is."

"Ideally," Talia says, a warning. They take Jason's hand in zirs, clasping their palms together, heat-soaked leather. Blood and blood. Hand in unlovable hand. "تقبرني (teʾburnī). Take heed, child. You have my contact."

Memorized and immutable. "Yeah," Jason says. "I'll call. Tell the rascal I said bye."

Talia tightens their grip on his hand. "You will see my Heart again. Until then," ze reaches up with their other hand, and smooths their fingers along Jason's nape. "شكرا على الهدية (šokranʿalā el-hedeyyah), my child."

\--

It has to be worth it, in the end. He dreams less and less, sleep untouched by crowbars, unmoored by the hazy sensation of drowning in green pits. No more, no more. 

It's fine now, he tells the boy who died in Ethiopia.

He downloads the victim registry from the Bat computer before leaving--hundreds of faces, hundreds upon hundreds. All graves someplace, all bodies, all gone. Jason sends flowers to every family, every sibling, every parent, every friend and every partner who has lost somebody, something, to the Joker. He crops up all around Europe, mailing bouquets from chains across the continent. Addresses a case of tulips to the Gordons. He might as well be sending up emergency flares, giving Tim and Barbara a thumbs-up from the other side of the planet, but he rather be a fast-fading enigma sweeping through small flower shops that disappears as soon as an order is placed, a wet footprint on hot sidewalk. Jason doesn’t have time to be caught. There are more important things.

"It's a touch morbid, don'tcha think," Roy says down the line, his kid shouting in the background. 

"I'm partial to attempts at reparations," Jason replies. He blows the rest of his cash on mailing a single stalk of anemone from halfway across the world to the Gotham Cemetery, to tombstone #48, the one bearing _Jason Todd, Son and Brother, Dead at Thirteen_. 

He goes hitchhiking after that, dusting his credit cards and other electronics, sticking it to the wind. He’s survived deserts and wastelands before; the Rohi will be no different. He hijacks a smuggler’s ratty truck and feels like a little kid again, when he drives it some fifty miles and pops the wheels off for its owner to find, if ever, left to the scavengers. He barters for passage with a desert caravan and their swaying camels, exchanging the small ringlet of gold he poached off Bruce ages ago, and at night sleeps to the sounds of Cholastani musicians beating their drums. He’s dark with the sun and his scars are almost light on his skin by the time he broaches the borders of Punjab. His safehouse is just as he left it, burgundy carpet and orange stools and dust-coated all around. He putters around for a while, making himself a meal, watching the oil sizzle, considering. Starts tallying up some people that he'll have to take care of through less bombastic means. Eventually, he has to dig out the travel laptop he's stashed away, a compact and older model, to take notes, and tie up a few loose ends (never-ending, with Gotham):

  * _Politician a + w/ support of d-f: hostile homeless bill, including but not limited to more aggressive infrastructure, policing, and curfews; nothing a few unearthed scandals can't beat back._
  * _Politician b: cutting funding for government post offices as mayor elections roll up; resolvable by blackmail and extortion._
  * _Politician c & e & f: another bailout for wall street, possible connections with Black Mask. Send 2 Barb for more information. _
  * _Cop 1: used excessive force while apprehending a minor, four times in a month; send a tip 2 the committee/CopWatch + pay the kid's bail & therapy. _
  * _Cop 2: same as above, pulled a gun on two black girls for speeding; mug him + send a tip 2 committee/CopWatch + pay for their therapy._
  * _Cop 3-12: sexual predators, frequents poor neighborhoods; hire Wilson to take them out. Smoke out the rest. Haunt them when back. Check in with survivors._
  * _Ex-Cop D: fired for reporting a fellow officer for unfair arrest and brutality. Probably blacklisted. Get this one connected. Send 2[CAHOOTS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3Z6uEfpTog&ab_channel=TheDailyShowwithTrevorNoah) & associates. If willing, connect them to local journalists (Jun & K). _
  * _Ex-Cop A: same as above. Started on an alcohol consumption spree. Get them connected to a mental health crisis center._
  * _Wire $$$ to ppl A-L Joker survivors via offshore bank 4AK. Contact guardians + orphans + relatives; pay for food, shelter, water, tuition, medical bills, etc as needed._
  * _Break into Bruce's banks for M-Z survivors. Leave a "Joke's on you" <3_



He eats as he works, finishing off the simple meal, leaving a muffled message for Wilson, and withdrawing copiously from his accounts for impending donations and checks. Then he leaves a handwritten note, carelessly stabbed through to the doorframe with a butter knife: _NO I DON'T FEEL BAD ABOUT IT. <3_

Jason plots an aerial route through to China, charting pit stops and recon checks; the drug and human trafficking routes must've evolved, expanded. If he's careful about it, he can probably demolish a few here or there. Five or something knives go skittering into his backpack with the laptop and the wallet with his new ID, and he sets off. 

深圳 Shēnzhèn is shiny, sidewalks paved with glistening spots of spit and silvery cigarette butts. It is easy to get lost in the streets, crammed with bikes, motorbikes, students with umbrellas, people bartering, vendors crowing, and the stray car. Usually a tourist or two trying to get around. Jason swears when a car door on the curbside props open, nearly slamming into the side of his motorbike and throwing him off balance. "你怎么回事 Nǐ zěnme huí shì! (What is wrong with you!)" The driver yells after him. Jason spits something scathing back, lost to the wind. 

His helmet--not the red one, no, that’s buried somewhere in the Cholistan desert--hisses out the news from this corner of the world, in monotone Mandarin. Jason switches the channel, connection attenuated due to the firewalls but regardless comprehensible, English spilling through in static-speak: _Gotham in High Spirits; Gothamites Celebrates the Death of the Joker; Infrequent Batman Sightings for Six Weeks; Gotham PD Have Yet to Release the Autopsy Report Confirming the Domestic Terrorist’s Death_ \--

Eventually, he swerves onto a quieter street, the buildings craning downward as he slows to a putter, boots scraping against the deformed concrete in shrieks.

"早安老老 Zǎoān LǎoLǎo (Good morning grandma)," he calls, and an elderly woman appears from one of the buildings. Jason props up the bike under the shade with a heave, swipes off the helmet, and holds up the 杨梅 Yángméi (bayberry) and the spicy peas. 老老 LǎoLǎo smiles, waves him over. He lives a wooden and ratty staircase above her, running the occasional errand. It’s a good enough excuse to tune in, check the news. Not that the news is anything new. The mainland is hardly stirred by the happenings in the USA American sphere. Jason hadn’t been surprised when the official Chinese government news site called it an act of community service, just as he had been unsurprised by some states calling it a punishable crime. 

Talia hadn’t attempted to reach him. That, at least, is a mild reassurance. The Justice League may just be sitting this one out. Idly, Jason wonders how long sociologists and anthropologists will be talking about this moment in history. 

老老 LǎoLǎo clips him in the side with a palm. "刚刚煮好了豆浆，你过来喝一点吧 Gānggāng zhǔ hǎole dòujiāng, nǐ guòlái hè yīdiǎn ba。(The soymilk just finished boiling, come drink some.)"

"好吧好吧 Hǎo ba hǎo ba, (Okay, okay,)" Jason makes an "oof" sound when 老老LǎoLǎo claps his shoulder once, twice, with unrestrained strength. It nearly reminds him of Leslie, of Alfred, and he chews on the thought before dismissing it. The best he can do for them is leave them well alone for the next year. Or two. Or ten.

He doesn't think about Bruce. It’d be pointless on his part. 

Inside, 老老 LǎoLǎo passes him a steaming bowl of soymilk, grins at him, toothless, and waves him away, satisfied to leave him to his studies. 坚森 sēn is a foreign university student here, studying abroad for a year-long traditional Chinese medicine program. If she climbs up to his room and finds him tinkering with a myriad of plants, well. It’s a rather hands-on experience, his assignments. 

Jason maneuvers through the narrow door, ducking his head under the frame, and sits himself down on his cot, two strides away. The thin, cool bamboo netting creaks, pleasant along his thighs. He slips out his burner phone with his free hand, firing off perfunctory messages to the ringleaders in the pits of Gotham, anxious and greedy and impatient, reminding them of the cut. 50% now. Obey or die. He debates pulling out his travel laptop, just for the semblance, and maybe the knife stuck in his boot, but decides against it.

“You can come out now,” Jason says into the empty room.

The window looking out over the abandoned side alley, half a coffee table tall and porous, makes barely a whisper. Then, suddenly: black and yellow, a domino, and a dark brow.

Jason squints at Orphan. "Weren't you in Hong Kong?"

 _Nearby. Took train._ She squats on the windowsill, on the balls of her feet, head inclined, hair wild. Rode the train, more like. A silence stretches between them; Jason stares at her, and she stares at him. Jason thinks that he is the only one capable of standing the silence besides Bruce. 

Cass gestures at the bowl in his hands, an olive branch. _Smells good_ , she signs.

 _Drink?_ Jason offers, holding the bowl towards her. Cass eyes it, then him. Jason fights the urge to roll his eyes, though he knows that she read the exasperation off of him the exact moment it arose. “You’ve been following me for a while,” he reasons. “You saw 老老LǎoLǎo pour this for me. It’s safe.” 

Cass concedes with a hand, and Jason passes the bowl over. _Case_ , she says, when she’s drunk, with a lip of milk. _You interested?_

 _No gear_ , Jason signs. Except for poisons and other concoctions he doesn’t have names for yet. “I’ve got a helmet and my fists. That’s it.” And knives, but the point remains. 

_Good enough_ , Cass says, and disappears off the ledge. 

Jason finds her on the rooftop, mask tugged fully over her head. “How long have you been operating out here?” He asks. Or, alternatively: have you heard about Gotham? Have you heard about me?

She cocks her head at him. It’s a knowing gesture. _A while._ Then falls silent.

Jason debates waiting her out, but eventually he just slides on his helmet, grey and nondescript, and says, “He asking for me yet.”

Cass makes a few swift, sharp motions with both her hands. _You want him to?_

He considers this. It doesn’t take long. _No,_ he says, and she watches him scrunch his fingers through the darkness of Orphan’s lenses. Orally, because she can’t see his face, can’t study the microexpressions, and Jason owes her more than a faceless voice, missing definition: “Nothing good will come out of it.”

Cass faces him, hands at her sides. Eventually, she says, _You broke the rule. The family is deciding what to do with you._

He hums, the helmet’s modulator not sensitive enough to carry it through. He has the sudden brilliant idea that maybe he ought to place bets and get Roy in on it. “Will you tell them where I am.”

She raises her arms. _No. Until a decision is made. No._ Meaning, she will when they have. By then, Jason imagines he will have disappeared. 

_Ok_ , he says, and draws up a map of 深圳 Shēnzhèn with his helmet. _Let’s go_.

A drug cartel, they find, running its profits for a mainland triad. They trace one of its unofficial leading groups to 吉安 Jí'ān, hunkered down in its messier parts, transporting a load of opium to one of their bigger bases in ShenZhen. 

_I handle it from here,_ Cass says, when they've pinned down exact locations and the ETA of the next big shipment. _You go_ , like she won’t be back for him sooner than later.

Jason wipes the back of his hands on his pants, knuckles humming with recent force. The spare leather gloves doesn't stop him from feeling the impact of a properly landed blow. "Yeah, right," he says. “They’ll be loaded, and you won’t have back-up.”

Pointing at herself: _Stealth_. Orphan points at him: _Target sign_. 

Okay, um. Jason takes off the helmet so he can raise both brows. “I disappear well, sister.” 

Orphan inclines her head, considering, then strips off the mask. They were on another rooftop, good vantage point--it’s fine. People worldwide don’t tend to look up, or look too closely. Jason doesn’t know what she reads off of him, but she gives him her full attention, mission sidelined. It had probably just been half a distraction, anyway. _True_ , she says. _Your trace not easy to follow._

_So you admit it. You came here looking for me._

_Did not,_ she says. _Was in the area._ Jason has to roll his eyes for that one. _Littlest one wanted to come with._

A sharp pang of--surprise or longing, Jason doesn’t care to discern. “The demon brat?”

Cass looks at him, amused, then says, _Yes. Wanted to find you. Hard to believe?_

“No,” Jason says, even though he knows that Cass can read the skepticism off of him. “B wouldn’t let him, I’m guessing.” 

_Bat grounded everyone._ Cass's hands fly. _Hard feelings. Everyone difficult._

"Difficult how?" because Jason can only imagine Dick doing mostly nothing to raise Joker above something other than a private, secluded and quiet execution besides the brevity of it, and he can imagine Damian muttering a "good riddance", and he can imagine Alfred politely treading the fine line between ambivalent and harshly remorseless. 

_Dick and Bruce fight,_ Cass replies. _Alfred and Bruce fight._ The former comes at no surprise, but Jason waves a disbelieving hand at the latter. "No way. Alf doesn't get involved in the petty morality debates that B loves to instigate."

Cass looks at him, stony and silent, and oh. Irreparably undone, right.

 _Does now_ , she says, and somehow that doesn't strike him as heavily as he figures it should. Jason doesn't say sorry. Instead, _Alf still makes meals?_

Cass nods. _Only constants._ Guess Bruce has been patching up his own cuts.

"The Manor must be hellish to stay in right now," Jason says, with little sympathy. 

Cass lowers her arms, huffs a wordless noise. Then she drops to the ground, squatting, rubbing her palms over her forehead, eyes, chin marked with bits of stubble. Minutes pass like this, until Cass says, with slow and tired movements: _No sleep, everyone. Dick almost went back. Stayed for you._ Her eyes narrow into his. _In case._

In case of what, but Jason already knows. _Doesn't need to_ , he signs, slow and stupidly deliberate. _I'm not going back._

Cass leaves her crouch, straightening until she is eye-to-eye with him. _Will. You will._

Jason swallows, shakes his head, tucking the helmet against his side. He wonders if it's the hesitation or the hurt that Cass follows over the crest of his shoulders, the minute winces of his jaw, the tightness of his thighs. He says nothing. He's already said enough.

Carefully, sharply, almost gently, Cass molds a palm to Jason's collarbone. Her thumb presses into the hollow of his throat. There, like a wick of a flame, _Little brother will._ Then she's gone over the ledge. By the time Jason tips his head over the building--looking for a shadow like an idiot--Orphan is without a trace. 

Well. Jason turns in the direction of his three-week lived apartment. He has about a two-hour headstart. Once he gets back: check the place for taps and bugs, then pack up and book it on his bike. 老老 LǎoLǎo is usually out playing Májiàng with neighbors a few streets down--if he’s quick about it, maybe he can pop in to thank her, to explain his sudden leave with something about a family emergency. It’ll be true enough.

Jason drops into his room the same way Cass had hours ago and gets to the table with its litter of plants and jars and notepads, his hands elbow-deep in a duffel bag, when his cot grouses: “This is a quaint establishment.” 

He whirls around to see a dark head and dark skin, a child's face. Damian blinks at him, owlish, from underneath Jason’s covers. Then he scowls at whatever he sees in Jason’s face. “Four hours for a mere premise sweep is hardly the peak of efficiency. Waiting became unproductive.”

“So. You decided to take a nap. In my bed.” Jason lowers his fists, raises his brows. He drops his duffel bag. “In enemy territory.” 

Damian scoffs, but the effect is lost when he scrubs his eyes with a small hand. “I fail to see how trespassing into my brother’s safehouse necessitates infighting.”

Something gentles in his chest. “You’re here with Cass.” And Orphan is not here by coincidence. 

“Father knows little about this location if that is your insinuation,” Damian says, which is oddly de-escalating for the kid, and Jason tapers off the spark of surprise before it can unveil across his face. The boy sniffs, as if provoked. “I see you are perfectly sane.”

“Peachy, thanks. Did Timmie suggest my latest transgression was Lazarus-induced?” They both know it hadn’t been, and would never strictly be the case beyond his first year out of the Pits, let madly loose on the world. Exceptional anger comes, eventually, with exceptional restraint. But leave it to Tim to grasp at straws to protect him from Bruce’s unadulterated castigation. It's kind, in a doomed way. If not a little insulting. 

Damian’s brows pinch, and he sits up fully. “Father was not fooled.” 

“Plus one for my uncontested mental wits, then.” Jason sits down on the stool next to the slender table. He feels weary, worn. He had planned on staying under for longer than this. Counted on dealing with confrontations later in the timeline. “You here to collect?”

"I am not here for an altercation." Damian squints at him in what feels like distinct disapproval, crossing his legs together, then his arms. He's dressed down; a jacket, t-shirt, and pants. Robin's suit is probably under there, or some stripped-down version of kevlar that bypasses security checks undetected. His pointy sticks are nowhere in sight. Probably hadn't made it. 

It seems too simple-minded of a thing to assume his little brother had come here to the shiny skyscraper city of 深圳 Shēnzhèn in the vastness of East Asia just to see him, so Jason crosses his arms and continues, "Then? Why are you here?"

Damian stares at him for a long minute. Annoyance, frustration, discomfort flash and abate. Finally, his arms tense, fingers clenching around his wiry elbows. "You did not say goodbye." 

Jason looks at him. The shot had been precise, near-silent, and immediate. Oracle would have known within minutes, and with that: rapid-fire, Red Hood's homicide hurtling through the web of Gotham vigilantes. Batman would have been the first to know. And Batman would have been the first to order a capture.

So he vanished. Took flight, ran away--whatever term or phrase chafes the best. The alternative had been to face Bruce, and Jason's last straws with him had always been borrowed, burning. Enacting justice shouldn't be something he has to apologize for.

"We both know that Bruce wouldn't have let me stay," Jason says. We both know what he would have done. 

Damian doesn't even make a disagreeing sound, not even a scoff, just sits there and barely manages to keep the haunted look off his face. Eventually, his shoulders loosen and his teeth unclench. He looks like a kid when he says, "Do you have such little faith in us that you would go off the grid and spare not a single thought for the rest of the household?" 

Again, he doesn't know what to say--because he's not sorry, and Bruce has always known him to be unrepentant. "I killed a reptile," Jason eventually says, and doesn't feel much of anything as he speaks a truth that should have been fact ages ago. "That choice alone removes me from the family."

"That has yet to be seen," Damian replies, snappish. Jason just leans back in his stool and does nothing to muffle his scoff.

"You mean it has yet to be decided. The old lot are still disputing it, aren't they--putting off patrols, sidelining the Justice League, twiddling their thumbs with public statements." A smile curves the edge of his mouth. "Very obsolete, if you ask me. I have already made the decision for them."

Damian's face twists. He glares. "Cain has not informed you."

Jason frowns at this. "What didn't she tell me that I don't already know."

"All the vital portions it seems," Damian hunches forward on the cot, looking intent, wired. "Ridiculous. You have been in the dark for too long, أخ Akh."

"She told me the family was still deciding what to do with me," Jason says, slowly, pulling himself upright. He doesn't like where this is going, if the thing in his gut had any merit. Which. It almost always does. "That Bruce is fighting with Dick. Alfred." Tim, Duke, Steph, Barb, Harper, Renee, Kate, Leslie--he hadn't asked about. Figured he couldn't without doing a speedrun through all the individual aches he's been nursing for weeks. 

"Yes," Damian agrees, then eyes him suspiciously, as if waiting for something. A great revelation, probably. Jason squints at him. The boy makes a frustrated noise, arms unfolding to make an exasperated motion. 

"I refuse to spell it out for you," Damian hisses. "Think! Or has running away made you permanently lame?" 

Jason belts down a humorless sound, and more incriminating still, a snarl of laughter. Talia slips into mind, the same sneer and scowl on zir face, and Jason rubs his temples. "This is a reverse interrogation," he mutters, tired. He thinks about home--he thinks about the Manor, the Cave, Alfred's kitchen, the old clock, the dog and the cat and the cow. Bruce's face, white and unmoved. "What exactly am I missing? Bruce is his same morally constipated self, Dick is probably sick to his guts with it, and Alfred I've heard is desensitized as all hell, and--"

He stops. And Cass and Damian are here.

Meaning Tim and Barbara had located him days or weeks in advance and sent them here. Meaning.

Meaning.

Jason stares at his little brother and the small, quiet look on his face, no longer agitated or disapproving or derisive when Damian says: "Pennyworth and Richard were arguing with Father about the memorial at the time Cain and I departed."

Something skates off the cliff, something hits the ground rolling. "Damian," his voice remarkably steady: "What aren't you saying."

Damian doesn't say a thing. Instead, he raises his hands. Traces the air. Formulates in a fluid stroke: _Family._

Jason watches his little brother sign, _You are family._

That can't mean what he thinks it means. It can't be that simple. "Don't give me shitty platitudes," Jason says, halfway into a snarl. 

"I speak the truth." Damian folds his arms again, looks at him with a patience that Jason doesn't recognize. "I did not travel all this way for a lie." He wouldn't.

Jason knows he wouldn't. It does not make belief come any faster. Doesn't make it rise in a fit or a miracle or a mirage.

"You really expect me to," he waves a sharp hand, agitated and angry, probably off in the head. "To, to--trust that, just take it for what it is." Like he hasn't been disappointed before. Like he hasn't gone mad with it. The leather creaks over his knuckles when he closes his hands into fists, a small sound leaking from his throat. He feels--he feels--he feels. His face burns. He sees green. "Six years. Six. Fucking. Years." 

On the bamboo, Damian is motionless, face sick and joyless. "أخ Akh," he says. "I am sorry."

Another sound rasps out of Jason, screeching into the room. "It's not," he stops, eyes wheezing shut. "It's not your apology to make." It's not your fault. Forgiveness this late--does it even matter. Does he even want it.

Yes, the child in his chest hisses: Yes.

A sob clings to his throat. He can't speak. Just bends into himself, hands the size of a twenty-one year old, scars and death flickering over him anew. He's terrified, tremoring, rocking a little. He doesn't hear Damian leave the bed, but Jason feels him hover near him. 

"أخ Akh," he whispers. Jason shakes his head, jaw wobbling, and says nothing. Damian draws a finger, paper light, over the back of his fist. _Okay. I will stay here._

They don't speak. Jason watches the wall opposite to him, thinking, thinking. He doesn't know when the sun begins to wane, when there's another hand easing over his shoulder blade, saying _I am here. I am here._

**Author's Note:**

> alternatively! "i will love you without a single string attached."
> 
> Translations!  
> [تقبرني teʾburnī = you bury me](https://www.arabicpod101.com/blog/2019/06/28/untranslatable-arabic-words/#4), by which your love is too great and the alternative is too sad to bear. Lebanese.  
> شكرا على الهدية šokranʿalā el-hedeyyah = thank you for the gift.  
> أخ Akh = brother.


End file.
